


Jungle Years

by melimarron



Series: Trapped [2]
Category: Jumanji (1995)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Jumanji sucks, Not Beta Read, Sort Of, Temporary Amnesia, and i decided to channel that old fear into this fic, anyway, i guess my writing is motivated by fear, okay the scene where alan is pulled into jumanji scared the hell out of me when i was a kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27649214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melimarron/pseuds/melimarron
Summary: Alan is sucked into Jumanji as a thirteen year old.He spends the next twenty-six years just trying to survive.
Relationships: Alan Parrish & Sarah Whittle, Alan Parrish & Van Pelt
Series: Trapped [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1909453
Kudos: 10





	Jungle Years

It takes an hour for Alan Parrish, waiting patiently in the jungle, to realize that Sarah Whittle has either not rolled the dice or she has not rolled up a five or eight.

It takes a lifetime to accept it.

* * *

He tries to rationalize it away, at first. 

The game was scary. It must have scared her.

The game had sucked him in. Maybe it sucked her in too.

The game was cruel. It wouldn’t let him out, so there was no way it had allowed the dice to fall on a five or eight.

When night falls, those rationalizations are torn down as the bugs come out to feed and he scrambles to find shelter away from the poisonous plants and the bloodthirsty animals. That’s when his memories of home, of Brantford, are sharpest. That’s when he blames Sarah for  _ leaving him here _ with all his heart.

* * *

Once, when wandering the jungle, he came across a hunting shack. Relieved, he’d snuck inside for some reprieve from the terrible bugs and the snarling monkeys. There had been food there, and clean water, and Alan was so happy he could have cried.

He ate his fill, then slipped out again, confident he had gotten away with it.

He didn’t realize what a mistake it was to eat there until a man with his father’s face came out of the foliage and pointed a gun at him.

* * *

On the day Alan met the man with his father’s face and a gun, he ran as fast and as hard as he could, but the man with his father’s face and a gun found him anyway. He climbed trees, he waded through water, he clambered over rocks and doubled back more than once.

The man with his father’s face and a gun caught up to him. So Alan ran again, and the man with his father’s face and a gun found him. And so Alan ran again. And again.

When the man with his father’s face and a gun finally caught him, Alan too exhausted to move, the two of them stared at each other for a long time. The man with his father’s face and a gun seemed to be struggling to say something.

Finally, he said, “I have two warnings for you, because you’re new. The first: I’m letting you go this once. Never expect it again.”

“What?”

The man continued as if he hadn’t heard Alan. “The second: you will forget your life in that other world soon enough. It’s inevitable. Best to accept it now.” He dropped a card at Alan’s feet. “Make sure to write down your name.”

Alan picked it up with shaking arms. It read VAN PELT, HUNTER. “I  _ won’t _ forget,” he said.

“You’ll forget,” the man with his father’s face and a gun said with absolute certainty. “We all do.”

* * *

After a year, Alan has long-since given up on ever going home. He doesn’t really remember, anymore, what  _ home _ was. He knows he used to ride his bike around a lot, and he lived in a place where it got devastatingly cold during the winters, but names escape him. He doesn’t remember where his father worked. He doesn’t remember the name of his town.

There are only three things he knows for absolute certain:

One: his name is Alan Parrish.

Two: he has been trapped in a world called Jumanji.

Three: the person who trapped him here is named Sarah Whittle.

He kept Van Pelt’s card with him. It serves as a reminder, even as he can feel memories of- of- of the-world-that-was-not-Jumanji sliding through his fingers like sand.

He likes his shoes, though. The tags are worn now, but he thinks they might have had PARRISH written on them. He doesn’t know why.

When he outgrows them, he cries, which is  _ so stupid _ when there’s food to worry about and horrifying beasts hunting the jungle and winter is coming. There’s so much better things to be thinking about, and crying isn’t productive  _ at all _ .

But he still cries as he tosses his shoes into the river and watches them float away forever. He doesn’t know why.

* * *

After five years, the-world-that-was-not-Jumanji seems like a dream. He doesn’t count the years, really. But at some point, he knows that he’s survived five winters. Five years. He’s eighteen.

He knows that eighteen is supposed to be important. So are the numbers five and eight. He knows they’re important in different ways, but can’t for the life of him figure out why. 

He spends his time fixing up his little jungle hut. It’s by no means safe, but he’s killed the more dangerous animals and plants that dare to venture near his territory. That doesn’t mean it’s secure, but it does mean that he can sleep more easily at night, not that sleep ever comes easy in a murderous jungle.

_ Five or eight _ , he thinks, and doesn’t know why.  _ Five or eight, Sarah _ .

* * *

After ten years, he knows that this world is Jumanji, and he has lived here all his life. His name is Alan Parrish, because that is what he carved into his shelter when he was thirteen and terrified of Van Pelt and his warning. He knows Sarah Whittle was important. He doesn’t know how.

He is far more capable now than he had been ten years ago, or even five. He’s twenty-three, and he can fight off the plants and the bugs and the lions just as well as a native Jumanjian, which makes sense, because he is one.

In his shelter, he has an old, ripped shirt. It’s the smallest thing he owns. He can barely remember ever wearing it. He’d written  _ 5 OR 8 _ on it at some point, for some reason. He remembers having had a reason to do that, but has no idea what that reason was. The numbers are complete nonsense, anyway. Maybe the result of a fever dream. 

Something nags at him. Tells him that he’s forgotten something important about himself- something that should have defined him and how he saw this monstrous jungle.

He dismisses it. It’s nearly night, and the overly aggressive owls will be out soon.

* * *

After twenty years, he is one of the apex predators of the jungle. He’ll never be as good as Van Pelt, though they haven’t seen each other since Alan was thirteen years old. The jungle is his home. He cannot imagine ever functioning anywhere else.

There are three things he thinks he might know about his life before Jumanji.

One: he calls himself Alan Parrish. He thinks that’s what his name is, because it’s carved into his shelter. 

Two: the numbers  _ five _ and  _ eight _ are important. He’s long since forgotten why.

Three: he knew someone named Sarah once, but something happened to her. Something to do with a game. She must be dead.

Interestingly, Sarah and Van Pelt are the only other human beings he can remember meeting. He remembers Van Pelt because he’s spent years sneaking around, trying not to antagonize the hunter. But he’s never so much as written Sarah’s name down.

* * *

On the day Alan Parrish goes home, he wakes up with an odd tingling in his hands and feet. He can only hope that he hasn’t been bitten by anything in the night.

He stands up, and the world swirls around him. The jungle dissolves, and Alan hovers in limbo for eternity.

He solidifies in an attic, and for a moment, the familiarity of it clashes  _ hard _ with the foreignness of no longer waiting in the jungle.

For a moment, he’s frozen as his brain tries its best to catch up with his surroundings.

Memories are sliding back into place by the dozen, thousands of times faster than he had lost them. He gasps, and grins a wild grin. 

He is on Earth. His name is Alan Parrish. Sarah Whittle was the other player. Sarah Whittle did not save him. But someone else has.

And now he can finally finish the game.


End file.
